The Effect of Autoclaving Sesame Meal on its Phytic Acid Content and on the Availability of its Zinc to the Chick ,

MANY workers have shown that the dietary requirement of the chick for zinc is higher on a vegetable protein than on an animal protein diet. It has been debated whether this is due to a combination of zinc with the phytic acid of the vegetable protein (O’Dell et al., 1964) or whether a zinc-protein or zinc-protein-phytic acid complex is involved (McCall et al., 1961; Norris and Davis, 1960). It has been shown that addition of phytic acid to casein diets will increase the chick’s dietary requirement for zinc (O’Dell et al., 1964; Likuski and Forbes, 1964). Likuski and Forbes (1964) also showed that phytic acid would increase the chick’s requirement for dietary zinc on an amino acid diet. Autoclaving reduced the chick’s or poult’s need for added zinc on isolated soybean protein or sesame diets (Kratzer et al., 1959; Lease et al., 1960) and it has been suggested that this …